While a service engine light isn't necessarily anything to be alarmed about, you should never delay too long in finding out if there's a problem with your vehicle and we’re going to help you with that.
In the auto repair industry, where you choose to get your car or truck fixed can make a big difference in the service, quality and price you receive, and choosing the wrong company can lead to a costly drawn-out project that only fixes the problem in the short term.
Exposure to heat, vibration and contamination makes belts and hoses wear out faster than any other components in your car. That's why regular inspections are so important.
We do our best to budget for scheduled vehicle maintenance and it is hard to plan for unexpected family car repairs. The truth is that our vehicles can stay on the road longer than ever before with proper maintenance. That’s because of improved vehicle design and manufacturing quality. But some of those same improvements also lead to higher repairs costs for every family car or vehicle.
There’s a tool that can be found on Edmunds.com that you can use to prepare your service and repair budget. Let’s suppose you have a used Toyota Camry – a very popular car in the area…
Before you buy your next light bulb you should know the ins and outs of halogen bulbs! Most new-model vehicles have halogen headlights because they produce more light than a regular bulb. Be careful: like all halogen lights, touching the glass bulb means that bulb is contaminated with oil that can heat up and cause burnouts more quickly.
Motor oil can be a confusing beast that results in a number of questions. Do I really need synthetic? Does my new car take conventional? Understanding the basics of the different types of oil will help you answer these questions. Synthetic motor oils are designed to excel at extreme temperatures. Regular motor oils are mineral-based: they come from crude oil that is taken out of the ground and run through a refinery. Synthetics, on the other hand, are man-made in a chemical plant. They tend to be more consistent in viscosity over various temperatures.
While synthetics can improve your engine performance, they don't eliminate the need for regular oil changes. Synthetics can handle heat better than regular motor oil, but additives can only work for so long and the engine will still contaminate the oil.
You see those cryptic combinations of letters and numbers on motor oil bottles everywhere. What do they mean? To decipher them, you have to understand viscosity. Viscosity measures how much the motor oil can resist flow. In other words, if you tip a motor oil bottle over, how fast it spills out indicates its viscosity. The more viscous, the slower it moves.
To indicate viscosity, the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) developed a standard scale.
The recommended multi-viscosity oil you use in your vehicle is usually good all year round because it can respond to a range of temperatures. That's why you see two numbers on most oils.
For example: 10W30
This means the viscosity is at 10W when the engine is cold and 30 when the engine is hot.
Low viscosities are good for cold temperatures (hence the "W" association) because the oil is thinner. Thinner motor oil flows more easily and moves quickly. When you start a cold engine up again, motor oil needs to travel to the top of the engine, where it trickles back down. Since motor oil is vital to lubricating your engine, it needs to move quickly and low viscosity helps it do just that.
When your engine heats up, higher viscosities mean the motor oil won't thin out too much and will keep parts separated by a film of oil. So your motor oil is always maintaining a delicate balance: it needs to flow well when the engine is cold but also retain enough body at higher temperatures to keep metal parts lubricated and separated.
To find out what motor oil grade is right for your vehicle, check your vehicle's owner's manual.
Octane. You see the word every time you visit the gas station but what does it mean? Octane ratings measure fuel's ability to resist engine knock. Engine knock is caused by fuel being ignited by something other than the spark plug.
If you are using an octane grade that is too low for your vehicle, something other than the spark plug can ignite the fuel in the engine. The engine could even get hot enough where the fuel explodes by itself.
What octane does your vehicle require? Check your vehicle's owner's manual. Don't upgrade to more expensive octane ratings unless your manufacturer recommends it.
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